Flight over Greenland

August 31, 2015

View of the southeast coast of Greenland, in the region around Tingmiarmit and Uvtorsiutit, as seen from a commercial airliner.

The best part of the flight between the States and Germany is the chance to see Greenland out the window halfway through the flight. On our recent flight home (between Frankfurt and Chicago) we passed over the southern tip of Greenland, and were treated to awesome views of its mountains and fjords, with glaciers flowing out from the continental ice sheet. See lots more photos below!

I was able to locate these fjords and glaciers in Google Earth; they appear to be far from any kind of civilization and after scouring for better maps I still can only find two names of nearby mountains — Tingmiarmit and Uvtorsiutit.

A view of the glacier at Sermiligarssuk, just east of Jakraviyk or north of Ivigtut, along the southwest coast of Greenland.

After about a half hour or hour of flying over the blank white expanse of the Greenland ice sheet, we reached the western coast of Greenland. We’ve all heard the alarming reports of how Greenland’s ice sheet is rapidly melting; in the photo above you can clearly see signs of vast melting going on. Whether that’s something new or just how it normally looks in the summer, I don’t know.

Some rugged mountains just north of the glacier at Sermiligarssuk, east of Jakraviyk.

The islands, bays, and inlets around Jakraviyk, along the southwest coast of Greenland.

After gaping at these views from the plane, and subsequently exploring around in Google Earth, Greenland has jumped up much higher in my dream destination list!